Solitude
Solitude - meaning Summary
Nature Versus Social Isolation
Byron contrasts two kinds of solitude: a restorative, chosen solitude in nature where one communes with landscapes and wildness, and the corrosive isolation experienced amid crowds when social ties prove hollow. The poem argues that true solitude is not physical aloneness but emotional abandonment—being surrounded yet unseen, without mutual affection or recognition. It reflects Byron’s sense of alienation and the pain of being socially estranged despite public attention.
Read Complete AnalysesTo sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been; To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, With the wild flock that never needs a fold; Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean; This is not solitude, 'tis but to hold Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled. But midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel and to possess, And roam alone, the world's tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless; Minions of splendour shrinking from distress! None that, with kindred consciousness endued, If we were not, would seem to smile the less Of all the flattered, followed, sought and sued; This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!
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